


the hurricane

by wiitts



Series: the hurricane [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Attempts at Reconciliation, Batfamily Feels, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Eating Disorders, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Reverse Robins, Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors, Tim Drake is Red Hood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 19:37:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18784837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wiitts/pseuds/wiitts
Summary: Tim Drake is the Red Hood, one of Gotham's most feared criminals. He also has an eating disorder.





	the hurricane

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Placeholder](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14016783) by [InsaneTrollLogic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneTrollLogic/pseuds/InsaneTrollLogic). 



> Mind the warnings in the tags. Additional more detailed warnings available in the end notes (contains spoilers, but please read them if you need to). References and resources available there as well. Also note that this gets rather graphic rather quickly.
> 
> Set loosely in InsaneTrollLogic’s Reverse Robins universe. It’s not entirely necessary to have read it, but there are references made to Placeholder and I highly recommend reading it because it’s fantastic. Also, Jason is the Spoiler in this because I said so.
> 
> There is no reason why this should exist, but here we are.

3

Gotham springs are arguably worse that its winters; endless gray skies, a damp chill that settles in your bones and refuses to leave. It's been raining continuously for the last six days, and the lack of sun makes Tim almost miss his time in the League.

Tim is dripping wet by the time he gets back to his safehouse. He pulls off his helmet and waterlogged jacket, leaving them hanging over a kitchen chair to dry. He’s far too exhausted to shower, settles instead for dry, clean clothes. He makes his way back to the living room, rubbing tiredly at his eyes.

His gun is aimed before he even flicks the light switch on.

Sitting on his ragged thrift store couch is Dick Grayson. He has a foot propped up on the coffee table, his fingers working at unlacing his boots. His mask, cape, and gloves are folded in a messy pile next to him.

“Hey,” he says, not even batting an eye at the gun.

“What are you doing here?” Tim asks, flat.

“It’s cold and wet and your place was closest.” Dick slides his foot out of the boot, leaves it on the table and starts on the second. “Can I stay the night?”

“Didn’t Bruce tell you to stay away from me?” The gun is still aimed at Dick, even though both of them know Tim won’t shoot.

“Yeah,” Dick answers, far too chipper. “But Jason said you were cool. And sometimes Bruce can be overprotective and dramatic, so I figured it was fine.”

Another crack of thunder echoes through the apartment. Tim twitches at the sound. It really is coming down out there. The thought of Alfred, or even Damian, having to drive across town to get Dick doesn’t quite sit right with Tim.

Last Tim heard, Bruce was off planet with the League and Damian was staying in Gotham to lead patrol. Bruce would be pissed, finding out that his precious baby Robin had spent a night in the big bad Red Hood’s lair. Jason might vouch for him, but Tim’s last confrontation with Bruce had resulted in two cracked knuckles and a limp that had lasted for days. Damian was somewhere in the middle, his guilt making him soft, more willing to look the other way when it came to Tim’s actions. Still, Tim doubts he’d approve of a sleepover.

Which is probably why Tim lowers his gun, biting out, “Fine. Go take a shower, I’ll bring you some dry clothes.”

Dick beams and bounces - now barefoot - off the couch. He calls out a “thank you!” as he scampers down the hall towards the bathroom.

Tim looks at the damp spot on the couch, the puddle on the table. He sighs.

 

Tim doesn’t wake up screaming. He never does after having nightmares, even when he was a kid. He lies in bed for a moment, staring up at the dark ceiling with dry, aching eyes and lets the panic wash over him.

He only ever remembers what dying had felt like in his dreams - the encroaching darkness weighing heavy on him and pressing down into his throat. He had been so cold. He hadn’t thought it was possible to be that cold when his own blood, hot and wet, was streaking down his arms, his chest.

It takes his brain a moment to remember there’s a body attached to it. When it does, he pushes himself out of bed and stumbles towards the bathroom. Tim doesn’t bother to turn on the light or even shut the door before he’s sinking to his knees in front of the toilet. He presses his forearms to the seat, head hanging limp between his shoulders as wave after wave of nausea rolls through him.

He stays like that for a solid five minutes, but nothing comes up. He’s barely even gagged before he shoves two fingers down his throat, impatient.

It’s mostly acid. Tim knows, both because he hasn’t eaten in hours and because the burn of it is so familiar to him now. It comes easier once he’s started, and a strange sort of relief follows despite the nausea still present in his gut.

“Tim?” comes from the dark silhouette in the doorway. “Are you sick?”

Tim’s knuckles grow tight around the toilet bowl. He hadn’t heard Dick wake up. “Go back to bed.”

Dick doesn’t budge. “Did you hit your head? Should I call someone?”

Tim is about to tell him to fuck off before he systematically breaks every bone in Dick's body, but another wave of nausea hits him. It leaves him heaving almost violently, his entire body shaking from the force of it.

“‘M fine,” Tim groans when he can speak again. He feels too hot all of a sudden, feverish. He presses his head to the cool porcelain and shudders.

There’s the patter of bare feet on tile before Dick touches his shoulder, light and careful. Tim flinches away from it without meaning to.

“Tim,” Dick tries again. His voice is as soft as his touch had been.

Something ugly twists in Tim.

“Get out!” he shouts, shoving at where Dick is standing.

Dick moves out of the way, as easily as anything with how weak and sluggish Tim is. Dick hovers in the bathroom for a beat, and just as Tim is about to snap at him again, slips silently out of the bathroom.

Tim leans back over the toilet bowl, hands gripped tight on its sides, and tries to breathe.

When he stumbles back to his bed nearly an hour later, he finds Dick sitting there, back ramrod straight and arms crossed over his chest. He’s looking at Tim far too sternly for someone his age, silently demanding an explanation.

“I had a nightmare.” Tim feels numb, disconnected from his body. It’s a welcome reprieve from the fevered panic of earlier that threatened to tear him apart from the inside out. His throat and chest hurt in a distant, grounding sort of way.

“Oh,” Dick says.

“Yeah.” Tim leans heavily against the door frame. Dick is looking at him like he’s something breakable. It’s making Tim feel like he is, like if Dick doesn’t stop looking at him like that he’ll start to crumble apart.

“Does… are you always sick, after?”

Tim doesn’t bother answering. He crawls back into the cramped bed, maneuvering around Dick so that he can lie down without touching him.

There’s a moment of stillness before Dick moves, curling up against Tim’s back and pressing up against him like a pet cat. Tim is too tired to do anything about it. Besides, Dick is warm, and all this rain has brought with it a permanent chill that Tim can’t seem to shake no matter what he does.

 

2

“Is that - do you -” Tim stumbles in sheer incredulity. “Did you bring a picnic with you _on patrol?_ ”

Jason shrugs. They just finished up a drug bust, meeting up on the roof of the GCPD when Jason, out of nowhere, had pulled out a brown paper bag. Like, the kind lunches got packed in. “Alfred found out I was buying street food after patrol, said it was ‘too unhealthy’ and started packing me food.”

Tim continues to stare at him.

“It’s not like I was carrying it with me the entire time,” Jason says. He’s starting to get a little defensive, a little cross. “I’m a growing boy, okay?”

Tim can’t exactly argue with that. Jason’s shot up like a weed in the past few years despite a childhood of malnutrition. He’s still on the scrawnier side, but it’s in that healthy teenage way where his weight hasn’t quite caught up with his height yet.

“That’s… such an _Alfred_ thing to do,” Tim responds. It’s meant to placate Jason, because Tim really hadn’t meant to upset him, but as soon as it comes out his chest starts to ache a little at the thought of Alfred, wrapping sandwiches in cling film and writing _Spoiler_ on the side of the bag because Jason would get a kick out of it.

Jason grins. “I know, right? He even made extras.” Jason reaches into the bag and pulls out a neatly wrapped sandwich. He holds it out to Tim.

Tim’s stomach drops. His pulse is thumping all over, in his wrist and palms and temples. He took his helmet off earlier, and he’s sure that Jason can see the jumping pulse in his throat.

“I’m not hungry.” Even and controlled, the way Bruce had taught him to be a lifetime ago.

Jason rolls his eyes. “We’ve been patrolling for _hours_ , c’mon -” he shakes the sandwich in front of Tim’s face. “And besides, you’ll break Alfie’s heart if you don’t have any.”

Tim bats at Jason’s hand, and Jason drops it into his lap. “Seriously dude,” Jason says, “you can’t live on justice alone.”

“I don’t want it,” Tim insists, trying to give it back.

Jason frowns, still not taking it. “Why?”

“I…” Tim’s mouth is bone dry. His face feels hot and vulnerable with only a domino on. “Whatever,” he says, caving and unwrapping the sandwich.

“You’re so weird,” Jason tells him, reaching into the bag for his own sandwich. Tim watches Jason rip off the plastic wrap and take his first bite. Tim mirrors his motion, lagging behind a fraction of a second.

It - it’s good, obviously. Everything Alfred makes is good, and even the Lazarus pit and all the years gone by couldn’t make Tim forget that. He chews it slowly, thoroughly, before swallowing the lump of mashed bread and meat and cheese. It slides thickly down his throat. He isn’t sure whether or not the sensation is wholly pleasant.

Jason, meanwhile, is happily chatting away as he tucks into his own sandwich. He isn’t talking with his mouth full but still somehow manages to keep a steady flow of commentary in between bites.

And - it’s fine. It’s okay, and Tim takes another bite, chews in that same careful way. It’s fine, it’s _fine_ , but, but -

Tim has a schedule. He eats before patrol so he doesn’t pass out, eats when he wakes up so he has enough focus to go over case files. It doesn’t matter what it is; shitty granola bars, fruit, cold cut meat. It doesn’t matter, as long as he’s eating enough so he doesn’t fuck up the only thing he’s good for. And it - it’s not _enough_ , but that’s the point, isn’t it?

“Tim? Are you okay?”

“I have a contact I’m supposed to meet,” Tim blurts, standing. His knees knock together pathetically before he fires his line at a building across the street.

He hears Jason’s voice from behind him, but whatever he says gets lost in the wind. Tim keeps moving, because suddenly it feels like he’ll fucking _die_ if he doesn’t stop, and before he knows it he’s halfway across town leaning heavily against a back alley wall. He’s gasping, trying to fight off the static and black spots dancing in his vision.

It’s only after he’s gotten his breathing under control that he realizes he left his hood up on the roof with Jason. That, and he’s still holding Alfred’s sandwich, half squished, in his hand.

“Fuck!” Tim kicks at a nearby trash can. The sound echoes down the empty street, chaotic in the early morning stillness. He slides down the wall and presses one hand into the rough asphalt beneath him. He stares at his other, still wrapped around Alfred's sandwich.

His stomach clenches uncomfortably from being simultaneously too empty and too full. The taste lingers in the back of his throat. He can feel the grit of seeds and grain from the bread sticking in the crevices of his teeth. His fingers curl into the pavement, and it hurts even through the gauntlet.

He wolfs it down, because he’s fucking starving and it had tasted so so good even though he barely tastes it now.

By the time he gets back to his apartment he feels sick, but Tim can’t even bring himself to shove his fingers down his throat, make it come back up again because _Alfred_ made it, and he’s already fucked so many things up when it comes to Alfred.

He crawls into bed, keeps a trash can close in case he really does need to puke, and hopes he doesn’t wake up in the morning.

 

1

Tim gets a knife tearing through his forearm, just below the crook of his elbow where the kevlar was thinner to allow flexibility. It wasn’t too deep, but the blade had been dull enough that the skin was more torn than cut. It burns annoyingly with every movement he makes.

The closest safehouse belonged to the Bats, and though Tim is loath to use it he’s been dizzy and lightheaded all day. The blood loss isn’t making it any better.

He half stumbles through the apartment, pulling off his sweat-soaked body armour as he goes. He grabs the heavy first aid kit out from under the kitchen sink and settles in one of the stiff wooden chairs. He examines the wound under the flickering fluorescent light. Not as deep as he’d originally though, but still deep enough to need stitches.

As he pulls out the necessary supplies - gloves, antiseptic, sutures - the familiar creak of a window sliding open has Tim tensing. His movement stutters for a beat, but he doesn’t turn around. The footsteps are too heavy to be Dick or Jason, too careful to be Bruce.

Tim hadn’t been aware that Nightwing was in Gotham. He’s been distracted, lately, and the fact that Damian’s presence had slipped under his radar sets him on edge.

“What do you want?” He shoots Damian a glare.

“Still can’t take care of yourself, can you Timothy?” Damian says, still arrogant and too-proud. Maybe if Tim were anyone else it would be a joke. But as it is, Tim is the last person Damian would be joking with.

“Fuck off.” Tim’s too tired to deal with this right now.

Damian settles himself against the kitchen counter. He crosses his arms over his chest, watching Tim like a hawk. The whiteouts of Nightwing’s mask are still up, and despite that Tim can feel Damian’s gaze boring into him.

Tim forces himself to ignore it. He focuses on disinfecting the cut, cleaning up the half-congealed blood streaked down his arm. There are nine different ways to get out of the apartment if he has to, and then seven ways to lose Damian in the streets. Most of Tim’s hideouts have been compromised by now, but he has one safe house left too close to Amusement Mile for the Bats to go looking for.

Tim can't take Damian, not in his current state. But if he gets far away enough, maybe Damian will let him be.

Tim’s fingers are shaking when he takes gets around to threading the needle. It takes him three tries to get it threaded, made worse by Damian watching.

A hand closes around Tim’s before he manages to start the first stitch. He jumps, head snapping up to see Damian scowling at him. Damian takes the needle from Tim, putting on the table before he takes a seat opposite to Tim. He doesn’t say anything as he exchanges his gauntlets for latex gloves. He picks the needle back up and reaches for Tim’s arm.

Damian’s hands are steady and warm through the gloves. His stitches are neat and methodical, far cleaner than Tim’s would have been. Damian ties off the end, slathers the cut in a layer of antibacterial ointment and wraps it in gauze, not saying a word.

Damian doesn’t let go of Tim’s arm. His grip is not firm enough to bruise, but enough that Tim would have to use force to extricate himself.

“What?” Tim snaps at him, feeling a spike of annoyance.

“You’re underweight.” Damian had probably intended for it to be an apathetic observation, but it comes out more like an accusation. He rubs his thumb over the jut of bone at Tim’s wrist.

Tim pulls his arm away like he’s been burned. Damian lets him. His eyes follow Tim, the lenses of his domino glinting in the artificial light.

“I’m fine.” Tim’s hands are still shaking. “Not all of us have butlers and midwestern househusbands catering to our every need.”

Just like that, any semblance of concern hiding behind Damian’s cool, haughty exterior evaporates. Damian stands, the scrape of his chair loud and grating.

Tim’s hands curl themselves into fists. Part of him wants to apologize, but part of him also wants Damian to get the hell out and never look at him the way he had been again.

“Very well.” Damian’s voice is clear and cold. “I’ll let Pennyworth know that his dinner invitation was rejected.” Damian heads for the window, motions as smooth and graceful as a cat. Bitingly, he adds, “Try not to let yourself starve, Drake,” before slipping out the window,

Tim allows his shoulders to slump in a twisted sort of relief. It feels lighter, somehow, confirming that Damian still hates him in all the same ways that he had when they were younger.

Tim stands, starts collecting the the rolls of gauze and medical tape back into the kit, his hands steadier than they’ve been all night.

 

0

Tim wakes up late, even by Bat standards. His head hurts, and his teeth feel almost loose in his mouth. It feels like his entire bed frame is shaking, and Tim realizes it’s his heart pounding in his chest.

The only times he’s ever missed patrol has been when he could not physically get out of bed. He’s stumbling now, but that’s okay. He can still move, even if it’s sluggish and uncoordinated and he has to sit down, lean his back against a wall as he puts on his kevlar armour. His fingers fumble on the laces of his boots.

When he stands up again, his heart is still beating wildly, uneven and jerky like it has been on and off for the last few weeks. Months? He can’t quite remember right now, but his fingertips are twitching in time to his pulse and he’s not sure if he’s had that happen before.

His phone buzzes on the end table. Tim glances at it, sees a text from Jason saying _where r u???_ and right, Tim was supposed to meet Spoiler and Nightwing.

Muscle memory is what carries Tim to their usual meeting place - the roof of an abandoned warehouse, nearly halfway between Tim’s most frequent haunts and Wayne Manor. He’s winded by the time he makes it there, nearly eats shit when his boots collide with the asphalt roof. He looks down, makes sure his boots are still tied up.

He’s expecting Damian to make some sort of snide comment, but to Tim’s surprise he doesn’t. Damian just looks at him, his expression unreadable through his mask.

“Red Hood?” Tim’s head snaps towards Jason, who’s looking at him in confusion. “You good?”

Tim nods, which was a bad idea as his vision goes blurry and black. “M’fine.”

There’s an ache in his chest that he can feel over the _thump thump_ of blood. A distant panic is making it hard to breathe.

Damian is still looking at him. Tim meets his eyes, and Damian must see something through the lenses of Tim’s mask because Damian’s face shifts. His mouth is moving, saying something Tim can’t hear. He reaches a hand out to Tim.

Tim jerks back from him, spinning to get away because suddenly Tim is fifteen again and Damian, _Robin_ , his hero is trying to kill him. He’s choking, he’s suffocating, his heart is about to burst out of his chest, he -

He isn’t sure if he passes out before or after he hits the ground, but either way he’s grateful for his helmet.

 

1

Tim is dreaming. Or he’s dead, but he can’t remember feeling this way the first time he’d died. There had been a detached sort of panic mixing with the resignation he’d felt as he had bleed out alone in that warehouse. Now he feels unfocused, blurry like the smudged background of a photograph.

He decides he’s dreaming when the first thing he sees is Stephanie, bathed in a bright, clinical light. His eyes start to water.

“What -” Tim says - or tries to say. His voice comes out raspy and thin, his throat dry and aching.

“You had a heart attack,” Steph says, flat and unamused. Her arms are crossed over her chest looking absolutely furious. “Your heart stopped. You’re damn lucky Damian was there or you’d be in a body bag right now.”

Tim blinks, long and slow, and tries to comprehend everything that’s just come out of her mouth. Heart attack. He remembers a pain in his chest now, his heart feeling like it was being constricted and every pulse echoing sharp in his left arm. Was that what had happened?

“I-” Tim tries again. His head is starting to clear a little and he wants to something to soothe that fury he can see in Steph’s shaking shoulders. He used to be able to do that, he thinks - make her smile when she was sad, be a salve to the hurt and anger that lived in her on the bad days.

“You know what else was wrong with you? Extreme dehydration. Low electrolytes. The beginnings of kidney failure.”

“Steph -”

Her eyes flash bright and damp as she tells him, “You’re killing yourself, Tim.” And then, quieter, “you know that, don’t you?”

 _Oh_ , Tim thinks. Oh.

Tim’s eyes drop away from Stephanie. He stares at the blanket covering him, twisting his fingers into it. There’s a silence that says more than Tim ever could.

Stephanie lets out a long, shuddering breath that seems to echo in the Cave.

Tim presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. His eyes are hot but dry. He sits and breathes, one two three, one two three, until he can bare to look at her again.

She’s turned away from him, maneuvering around the medbay with practiced ease. She’s dressed in scrubs, her long hair tied back into a messy ponytail. When she turns and Tim sees her in profile, his eyes trace the crooked slope of her nose. The freckles there, across the bridge and smattered along her cheekbones, are dull and faded from months of weak winter sun. There are dark circles under her eyes, the kind she got after more than three days of inadequate sleep.

 _You're still so beautiful_ , Tim thinks suddenly. He isn’t sure if he’s being pumped full of some sort of painkiller, or if it’s the brain fog that’s making his thoughts feel indistinct and fuzzy.

They'd been broken up for almost a year when Tim had died, but despite that he can still remember viscerally what being in love with her felt like. She was such an easy person to love, and if there was any love left in Tim that hadn’t been sucked out by the Pit, all of it belonged to her.

Tim wants to tell her that. Wants to apologize for not telling her he was alive, apologize for being as fucked up as he is and nearly dying _again_. But saying any of that could be the tipping point that makes Stephanie’s anger turn into tears, and he doesn’t think that’s something he could handle in his current state.

He’s so tired of hurting the people he’d loved, once upon a time. The people he wants to believe he could still love.

 

2

The second time Tim wakes up his head is pounding. The lights are turned lower than they had been before, and Tim manages to open his eyes blearily. His head still feels cotton-stuffed, though not as bad as it had been before.

It doesn’t quite take as long, this time, for Tim to get his bearings straight. There’s an IV drip in his arm that pokes at him when he shifts. The Cave’s medbay looks the same as Tim remembers, clean and sterile with the equipment lined neatly along the counters. There’s a figure sitting in the ever present chair, the same chair where Tim himself had spent countless hours keeping vigil - watching over Bruce and Stephanie and, once, Damian, when he’d been so out of it that he hadn’t realized Tim was the one there.

Tim’s expecting Alfred, maybe Jason, to be there. But when he turns his head it’s _Bruce_.

Bruce - not the Bat, but _Bruce_ \- dressed in ragged sweats and an old, faded hoodie. He’s sitting slumped, elbows on his knees and face buried in his hands. Tim’s breath hitches. His heart is in his throat and he wants to gag. He digs his nails into his thighs, tries to breathe his way through it even though he can already feel his throat burning.

Beyond the beep of his heart monitor, the cave is quiet. Bruce is silent as he ever is, and Tim can’t help but stare at him - his wrinkled clothes, the grey streaked in his hair.

“How long.” From anyone else it would be a demand. From Bruce it was a plea.

Tim’s eyes prickle. “Since Haiti.” His voice cracks.

A low hiss of breath comes out of Bruce, and Tim shuts his eyes.

Bruce wanted to believe that - that _this_ was some new development. A side effect of the Pit, or some manifestation of guilt. But it wasn’t. Tim had been numb and dead for years before his heart had actually stopped beating. It had been so simple, logical even, from there, to just - stop eating. All of those articles citing him as a ‘deeply troubled youth’ who’d ‘suffered many losses’ hadn’t been far off. That moment in the warehouse with the Joker, when he’d made his decision - he hadn’t wanted to die, then. But Tim would be lying if he said that he had never once thought of it, if he tried to pretend that starving himself and shoving his fingers down his throat over and over wasn’t a slow means to an end.

“I’m sorry.” Tim has never heard Bruce’s voice shake like that before. “I’m so sorry, Tim.”

Part of Tim wants to say something - _it wasn’t your fault_ or _no one knew, i hid it too well. you wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it, anyway._ It surprises him for a moment; Tim had been so sure that however much of that had been left him had gotten burned away by the Pit.

Tim says nothing though, because he knows if he did the words would fall flat or turn into something cold and mean, and the thought of hurting Bruce while he’s like _this_ makes Tim’s chest ache.

Tim listens to the barely audible sound of Bruce’s ragged breaths until he falls back asleep.

 

3

“Bruce told me you were sick,” Dick says. He’s sitting on Tim’s cot and not in the chair next to it. He’s playing with a rubber ball, alternating between rolling it between his palms and tossing it back and forth. He halts his motions, pausing, before saying, “and Jason said you have an eating disorder.”

“Yeah,” Tim says, because there is absolutely no point in denying it. His eyes feel gritty and tired, but he’s more awake than he has been in days.

He’s not totally sure how long he’s been in the Cave - the _Manor_ \- for. He’s spent most of that time sleeping, recovering from having his heart stop beating (again) and the fact that he’s been starving himself for most of his adolescence.

Alfred and Stephanie have periodically come in and out of the medbay to check his IV and put food and supplements in front of him when he was lucid enough to know what they were. Beyond the second time he’d woken up, Bruce hasn’t come back, and neither Jason nor Damian have come to see him. He’s mostly grateful for that.

However, he doesn’t think he wants to talk to a twelve year old about his myriad of issues.

“Is that why you threw up?” Dick asks. “When I stayed over?”

It takes Tim a moment to understand what Dick’s referencing. It feels like so long ago now. He marvels, briefly, at how he had gotten so bad so fast.

Apparently Tim is quiet for too long, because Dick says, “Was - am I not supposed to know?” His face scrunches up in concern. His grip on the ball tightens. “‘Cause Bruce didn’t tell me, and Jason…” Dick trails off, and Tim figures that means Dick pestered Jason till he gave a straight answer.

“No one was supposed to know,” Tim says softly. Another fit of honesty. He really, really doesn’t want to talk to Dick about this.

Dick frowns. “You’re staying here though, right? While you get better?”

Tim doesn’t have the heart to tell him he doesn’t think _getting better_ is something he can do. “Shouldn’t you be in school?” Tim deflects. His sense of time is a little screwed up, but he’s fairly sure it’s the middle of the week.

“Half day,” Dick says with a shrug. “And Bruce said maybe I should take some days off. So that means you’re staying, right?”

Tim sighs internally. “I guess,” he answers, because he doesn’t think he has any sort of say in it.

Dick grins, far too cheery next to Tim, tied up in tubes, sitting gaunt and half-dead next to him. Dick opens his mouth to say something, but whatever it is gets cut off.

“Richard,” Damian says from a few away. Both Tim and Dick jump at his voice. “Father requires your presence.”

“Okay,” Dick says. He presses the ball into Tim’s hand. “I’ll see you later.” He bounces off the bed, cartwheeling towards the stairs. Tim watches Damian roll his eyes, fond in a way Tim wasn’t used to.

Tim expects Damian to follow Dick out without acknowledging Tim’s existence. Instead, he remains standing, awkward and tense, not quite looking at Tim but not looking away from him either. Damian doesn’t fidget. Not like Dick had been, and not the way Tim is, right now - fingers flexing around the ball, still warm from Dick’s hand.

“You - you’re going to be fine,” Damian says suddenly. He’s scowling, but it’s not directed at Tim, doesn’t seem to be directed anywhere in specific. “You’re stronger than this, Tim.”

Pressure builds up behind Tim’s eyes, abrupt and unwelcome. He stares at his lap, at his boney hands curled up around Dick’s rubber ball. His nails are splintered and jagged. “Don’t know about that,” Tim answers thickly.

Damian’s hand finds Tim’s shoulder. Tim doesn’t know when he moved, but he finds himself leaning into Damian’s touch. Damain’s hand, solid and warm, squeezes Tim’s shoulder.

“You’re a Bat,” he says with conviction. “That’s what we do.”

Tim lets out a shuddering breath, and tries to believe him.

**Author's Note:**

> Detailed warnings:  
> \- Graphic descriptions of eating disorder thoughts and behaviours; includes purging and restriction  
> \- Type of eating disorder not named, but falls under EDNOS/OSFED  
> \- Minor descriptions and discussion of cardiac arrest  
> \- Minor descriptions of brain fog and anxiety
> 
> References and Resources:  
> \- [International resources if you need help](https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/treatment-for-eating-disorders/international/)  
> \- [General information](https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/information/eating-disorder/)  
> \- [Information on EDNOS/OSFED](https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/blog/osfed-versus-ednos-what-is-the-difference/)  
> \- [MerryRose Howley’s ED recovery videos](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnJQehiS4ZfetKMzW7KqdMZmM6xL9XKCn/) (Particularly, these three: [x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd0nIbAa-Bg&t=1s/) [x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJkr7sBYIZs/) [x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xbDPKNIGfI&t=915s/))  
> \- [Case study of cardiac arrest caused by an ED](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3822148//)


End file.
